November 13, 2009

With a new dorm, plans for an arts center and other projects, the University of Chicago builds a bridge across the moat of the Midway

There are really two Universities of Chicago. One, north of the Midway Plaisance, is the picture-postcard campus famous for its serene, neo-Gothic quadrangles. The other, south of the Midway, is a thin strip of buildings that forms a veneer of institutional order in front of the struggling Woodlawn neighborhood.

Now the university is making its biggest push in years to bridge the divide between its disparate north and south sides.

This fall, it opened a city-friendly, 9-story dormitory, clad in the familiar material of Indiana limestone, south of the Midway. On Tuesday, the university announced that it would break ground next spring on a handsomely-austere, 11-story arts center, also south of the grassy expanse. And much more is planned, including the installation next spring of 40-foot-tall light pylons (below) that will seek to make the vast Midway more inviting to pedestrians, particularly at night.

While the new designs are not without anti-urban details, such as the prison-like bars to keep intruders out of the dormitory's courtyards, the surge of construction as a whole is praiseworthy.

Just two years ago, a Senegalese graduate student was shot dead in the 6100 block of South Ellis Avenue, steps from the site of the new dorm, in an apparent armed robbery. Instead of raising the drawbridge and retreating behind the Midway's grassy moat, however, the university has continued its push into what it calls the South Campus--in part because it has few other places to expand.

The efforts build on South Campus projects that the university completed last year: restoring the luster of two mid-20th Century modernist gems and adding a 21st Century jewel.

Chicago architects Krueck & Sexton rehabbed the university's best steel and glass box, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's School of Social Service Administration Building. The Chicago firm of OWP/P finished a 10-year renovation of Eero Saarinen's U. of C. law school and its iconic "pleated glass" library (left). At the new South Campus Chiller Plant, Chicago architect Helmut Jahn used a sleek skin of glass to reveal the colorful pipes inside--and how such hum-drum buildings can be beautiful.

For all their individual distinction, however, these and other South Campus buildings don't come close to making a coherent or lively place. None are tall enough to beckon students, as do the filigreed Gothic towers of the university's Harper Memorial Library. Several dutifully face the Midway, but they barely acknowledge each other. Indeed, some of the buildings have the haughty air of embassies -- no surprise, since their architects, including Edward Durell Stone, shaped notable American overseas outposts in the post-World War II era.

Located at the corner of Ellis Avenue and 61st Street and known as the South Campus Residence Hall, the new dorm strives to introduce a traditional street-friendly urban design to the area south of the Midway. At that, it largely succeeds.

As part of the project, architect Geoff Wooding of the Boston firm of Goody Clancy discretely attached a mostly-glassy, wedge-shaped dining hall to the back of the neighboring Burton-Judson Courts, a 1931 neo-Gothic dorm. Between the eatery and the new dorm, Wooding put a paved outdoor plaza, creating a lively mid-block oasis for pedestrians (left) that continues eastward as a pathway to the adjoining law school. With all the buildings creating a critical mass, you even see students walking across the Midway. The dorm also tiers downward to five stories along 61st Street so it doesn't overwhelm the modest homes of nearby Woodlawn.

So much for the self-contained embassy school of urban design.

While the building's exterior verges on fussy--almost to a fault, Wooding tried to break it down with idiosyncratic details--the interior could turn out to be a model for transforming anonymous, mid-rise housing into intimate residential clusters.

Wooding went beyond the customary layer-cake organization of such building and encouraged students to interact. He divided the dorm's 811 beds into eight "houses" of roughly 100 students each and linked the floors of each house with an internal staircase (left) while threading generous common spaces like two-story lounges for each house into the traffic flow.

The students appear to have taken ownership. They've decorated the hallways to express the personality of each house. At Crown House, for example, hallway walls are papered with drawings that suggest castle-like fortifications and medieval crowns. "It's the best house," one student said.

Such pride and interaction is precisely the aim of the architects of the arts center, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of New York City. And their plan could turn out to be architecturally distinguished as well as a social and urban design success.

Known as the Reva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts, the center, due to be completed in 2012, will bring together dance, painting, music, theater, film and other artistic disciplines in two interlocking buildings: a flat-topped, 11-story tower and an L-shaped, 3-story base that will rise at Ingleside Avenue and 60th Street.

The design, which has been simplified since Williams and Tsien won an invited architecture competition in 2007, shows that economic austerity can make buildings better rather than watering them down. The architects cut such unnecessary flourishes as a cafe that would have cantilevered boldly outward from the tower. The base, with its saw-toothed skylights, took on an appealing directness inspired by the light-filled, structurally-advanced factories of the 20th Century Detroit architect Albert Kahn.

With the glassy northeast corner of the tower facing directly toward the campus' heart (below), the arts center could become a beacon, a new skyline symbol that will lure students and faculty to cross the Midway. It also should enliven street life, with a mid-block, east-west pathway that will lead visitors into a lively courtyard and a glassy south front that will present an inviting face to Woodlawn.

There are risks, to be sure. The architects need to ensure that their tower, which will be faced in Indiana limestone or a more varied stone from Wisconsin, doesn't come off as bland and corporate. Nonetheless, this is a plan of great promise, one that could draw together the north and south sides of the U. of C. and help turn the Midway into a new quadrangle, not a moat.

POSTSCRIPT: I'd like to credit two firms in this version that space constraints did not allow me to mention in the print version.

The light-emitting pylons that will be constructed on the Midway are by James Carpenter Design Associates of New York City. They are intended to create a "light bridge" across the Midway, inspired by Frederick Law Olmsted's unrealized plans to flood the Midway's sunken portions after the Chicago world's fair of 1893 and turn them into a canal. Land bridges would have crossed the canal.

Also worthy of mention is the Chicago firm of Ross Barney Associates, which designed a new U. of C. parking garage south of the Midway (it's project "E" in the graphic below). Unlike a typical garage, the lower stories of this one are wrapped with offices that makes them more appealing to the eye and enlivening for the street.

I also did not have room in the print version of the story to refer to the controversy that has sprung up over the Chicago Theological Seminary's plans for a new building south of the Midway. The construction of the building will force the destruction of a community garden south of the intersection of Dorchester and 61st Street to provide a staging area for construction. The Tribune has already covered this dispute and I link to that story for your reference. Finally, here is a follow-up post on the dorm, which shows the original vision for the building.

Posted at 09:23:35 PM

Comments

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Nice publicity for UC but the university is still north of 61st Street like it always has been creating a divide from the richness Woodlawn has to offer. It is not moving into new ground as the article is misleading. To say Woodlawn is struggling is continuing a gross misperception of the area. I have been since I graduated from UC in 1974. Recently my street has two new condo buildings, one new rental building, a bed and breakfast, and other improvements. The immediate area bordering the 'South Campus' is occupied by faculty, students, alums, UC employees, and many others who find it a desireable place to live. Now only is the university would embrace their neighbors.

BK: Yes, Woodlawn has seen some redevelopment, but you grossly overstate its progress. Just drive through the neighborhood and see all the vacant lots. It's still struggling.

I'm in awe, of any school, who's being TOTALLY fair, with each individual, who's applying themselves to expire, but I STILL think that it's nieve of the administration, if they think that other still feel that they can shower the corruption, with new activities.
After all, it took someone(probably of "minority", to shed this light on what's been happening there for years, so beware, others will be watching you like halks(justifiably)!

And now the big picture begins to emerge. The vacant lots south of the campus are the consequence of urban warfare that decimated Woodlawn during much of the 60's. Some influential ministers allowed gangs to keep their weapons in their churches. The economic viability of 63rd street tanked as retail shops closed down one right after another. The El which was always important to the area was torn down, and expensive bland single family houses were built. All of Woodlawn was built on land that was owned by Stephen A. Douglas and given to the University. The University had drawn up a development plan in the early 70's that extended it's campus all the way to Oakwood Cemetery on 67th street. The gang warfare that took place between the Blackstone Rangers and Disciples, and abandonment by slum landlords who refused to invest helped clear out much of Woodlawn's 1 square miles the same way that any territory where there is turf war is leveled and then primed for development by the superior power in the region. In Woodlawn it's the University. Certain community organizations which were set up to act in the interest of the residents were easily coopted with the help of some leaders who have been paid off many times over. So don't think that that sliver of land south of the Midway is where the University will end it's boundary.

There is condo development and renovation going on, but Woodlawn needs a grocery store and some retail. That's one reason I didn't more there (I looked at several condos). If you live in Woodlawn you pretty much have to own a car so you can drive to get groceries at Treasure Island or Hyde Park Produce (or elsewhere).

1) Decades ago, in the wake of white flight, racial turmoil and urban renewal, The University formally agreed with the Woodlawn neighborhood NOT to expand south of 61st Street. That means that South campus development is necessarily constrained in a narrow strip between 60th and 61st. Granted, there is still lot's of room for development in that strip, but the area can NEVER have the critical mass that the main campus north of the Midway has. The fact that the south side of 61st street is a quiet residential street, rather than a commercial strip, limits the amount of mixing you can get at the immediate interface between the campus and the community. The University has proposed commercial projects (like stores and restaurants) to enliven the north side of 61st, but the community response has been mixed, at best.

2) The university community has embraced the South Campus and Woodlawn more quickly than the architecture and master plan has. Thousands of students attend classes on the South Campus (but almost all are graduate professional students, who have a different "dynamic"), and thousands of employees work and park There have been a significant number of students living in Woodlawn for the past decade. The Experimental Station at 61st and Blackstone (sadly not referenced in your article) is a thriving intersection space between Town and Gown, with a community bicycle shop and restaurant/cafe. Adjoining the Station is a small farmer's market with a loyal following. While it's future is uncertain, the community garden is a popular spot for university types, and the Chicago Theological Seminary is building it's new campus in the same area.

3) Finally, it's unfair to criticize how sleepy the south campus is when the main campus isn't that much better. Compared to other urban campus neighborhoods around the country, Hyde Park is a total snoozer, with a paucity of commercial & entertainment options. The reasons for that are many and stretch back to urban renewal and before. The neighborhood has shown distinct signs of waking up (with a few good restaurants opening in the last two years) and the university actually seems to be trying to provide more constructive leadership in this area. But the legacy of Urban Renewal, which replaced commercial strips with green space and low-density residential property, severely limits property available for redevelopment, and the neighborhood's prevailing luddite NIMBY attitudes make efforts to increase density to critical mass levels for quality urban neighborhoods very difficult, at best.

BK: Thanks for your comments. I'm well aware of the gentleman's agreement that has prevented the U. of C. from pushing south of 61st, but did not have space for it in the story. I disagree with you, however, about the consequences of the agreement in terms of developing a lively pedestrian precinct. The mid-block plaza and pathway south of the new dorm begins to break down the scale of the block between 60th and 61st and to create a pedestrian-friendly, east-west circulation spine there. If that spine is expanded and more university construction occurs south of the Midway, the area could become quite lively--a second (but not secondary) extension of the main campus to the north.

I agree that there is not a lot of continuity...partially due to the fact that planning has been entrusted to 2 entities...University and Hospital. No comment about our new parking structure and campus police station? It has a larger impact than the SSA or Law School rehabs and far more visible than the Chiller.

BK: Chill, Carol. Your parking garage is now mentioned at the end of the post. And, no, no comment in the print version. Mies and Saarinen rehabs rank a parking garage.

No exaggeration. Everything I mentioned has been something new or regentrified on our street. I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. White people didn't walk to 63rd street when I first moved here (except to the Chinese restaurant with some fear); now they live south of it. It is not just vacant lots that are indicators. The title of the article was misleading-a bridge??? There have always been UC buildings on south campus (where I went to school and lived in BJ); it is just aggravating that the university chooses to truly collaborate with its neighbor where, like I said, lives their alums, faculty, students, employees, etc. Why can't some of those vacant lots be used to build their campus further since land is scarce???

BK: The University is prohibited by a "gentleman's agreement" from building south of 61st.